Iris Potter and The Philosopher's Stone
by Esm3rald
Summary: Iris Potter is very surprised when a few days before her eleventh birthday she receives her Hogwarts Letter. This is just the beginning of her new life in the Wizarding World where every witch or wizard knows her name and has fixed expectations on how she should be and how she should behave. But what happens when the girl-who-lived is sorted in Slytherin? FemHarry/Severus later on.


**This is kind of AU. For starters Harry is a girl in this story. Her name is Iris Lily Potter. This fanfiction will be a rewrite of the HP series. The major pairing will be Iris/Snape but not for a long time(she's only eleven at the beginning of the story after all). Oh, Iris will be sorted into Slytherin and she will be best-friend with Draco Malfoy. Hope you'll like it and will give it a try!**

**Chapter 1 - The Hogwarts' Letter**

Iris Potter was not a girl who anyone could call ordinary. For starters, normal 10 - almost 11 - years old girls live with their parents. But Iris had not parents. She was an orphan and the only relatives she had left were her aunt Petunia - her mother's sister - and her uncle Vernon Dursley, plus a very fat cousin named Dudley. Her parents - from what little the Dursleys told her - had died in a car crash when she was one year old, leaving her with a lightning bolt shaped scar on her forehead. But her relatives were not lovely guardians. They had hated Iris since the first moment she had ended up on their doorstep the 31st of October 1981. They had taken her in but they had never tried to hide the fact that they had done so very unwillingly.

Another thing that made her different from the other girls her age was the fact that she hadn't a bedroom of her own but that for the first seven years of her life her bedroom had been the cupboard under the stairs. Not only that but she was forced to do chores for her family that nobody from age 4 should do, like cooking for her entire family, clean the house from top to bottom, take care of the garden, paint the picket fence and so on. Since she had to go to school during the week, those kind of chores - except for the cooking of course - were left for the weekends.

The only good thing about the Dursleys - if it existed a good thing about them - was that if she followed their rules, they leaved her relatively alone. She was free to go wherever she wanted after school - the Dursleys were more than happy not to have her around - if she was at home in time to prepare dinner. Since she had no friends, Iris spent every week evening at the public library since she was 5 years old. Iris was pretty smart - she was able to understand books about topics that should be well beyond her understanding - and she loved to read because books helped her get away from real life. The old lady who worked there didn't mind and often asked her to help her in her work because she was alone, paying her something for every hour that she was there. Putting aside that money, Iris was able to buy herself clothes - nothing too expensive of course - instead of being forced to wear Dudley's hand-me-downs.

Finally at the age of 8 years old, Iris had enough. When one late evening she was walking back home to cook dinner like every other day, she spotted a notice on the window of a diner. The owners of the restaurant were searching for someone to hire as a kitchen aid that would also clean the diner after closing hour. The salary was not spectacular - about 600 pounds a month - but was more money that she had ever seen in her short life. This kind of money every month plus what she was able to gain in the library was enough to take care of herself and her need without asking anything to the Dursleys anymore.

Convince the owners of the restaurant to hire her was not an easy task - their biggest complaint was her age - but when Iris reminded them that none of the clients would have seen her since she would have work in the kitchen and then after closing hour, and when she showed them that she was perfectly capable of doing what they asked, they finally relented and decided to hire her. The only problem - since she was a minor - would be to convince Aunt Petunia to sign the contract in her stead but she had a plan for that.

If there was one thing the Dursleys hated was to spend money for her. Telling them that they wouldn't spend anything for her anymore would be enough incentive to convince them to sign the contract. Aunt Petunia accepted, even if reluctantly, and the next day Iris started to work every night. Of course Iris was still forced to do her chores but she was able to convince The Dursleys to let her move in the attic - that was even provided with a tiny bathroom with a washing machine - where the Dursleys put the things they didn't need any more. Iris was allowed to do with them what she wanted - big concession from the Dursleys -. Not to say that everything that there was there was useless or broken. On the contrary, a lot of the things that were there were still in good condition and in perfect working order. There were boxes and boxes full of books - mostly gifts from neighbors and the like that the Dursleys had no need for since none of them was a great reader - utensils for the kitchen and the bathroom and old blankets and towels. There was even a kitchen, a dining table with four chairs, a large bookcase, a dresser, a chest, a bed, a desk, a wardrobe and a bedside table from when the Dursleys had changed the furniture of the living room, kitchen and their bedroom some years back. There were also a lot of things she had no use of like Dudley's old toys of course. But all in all it was great. She spent an entire month rearranging and cleaning everything to her liking but at the end she had created something that looked more like a small flat. The things she didn't need she wasn't of course allowed to throw away so they ended up partly in Dudley's second bedroom and partly in the basement.

From that moment on Iris's life - if not easy - was at least much better.

There was only one thing that weighted on her mind and that was the strange things that happened to her since she was very little. Things she couldn't explain, no matter how much she put her clever mind into it. Like the time when she was very little and Aunt Petunia had cut off all her long, curly dark hair expect for the bangs that covered her scar and the next day she had woken up with her hair exactly how they were before the scissors had touched them. Or the time when she ended up somehow on the roof of the school trying to run away from Dudley and his gang. Or when she had turned her teacher's hair blue without meaning to. Or the fact that since she was eight or so she had been able to move things without touching them, open padlocks or locked doors, change colors to her clothes and enlarge them when they became too small for her size or that she was able to talk to snakes. She had no idea that the answer to her questions would have had the appearance of a letter, a big yellow envelope with her address written in emerald green ink - a color very similar to her eyes -.

When Iris woke up that morning, something in her immediately knew subconsciously that there was something different. She left her warm bed and reached the only window in the room, curious about the strange noises that were coming from there, as if someone was throwing pebbles at her window. Near the window was a desk, with books and notebooks scattered in all its surface. Between the desk and the window was a perch and on it was a red-tailed hawk of three years old. Iris found it one day when she was crossing the park near Little Whinging to return home. The hawk had probably fall off the nest trying to fly and had a wounded wing. She brought it home and cured it as much as she was able to, even going to the library and search for a book about hawks and how to take care of them. From that moment on the hawk - that she had named Horus in honor of the Egyptian god of the sun - never left her side if not to hunt for its preys.

Iris looked outside her window and a moment later widened her eyes in surprise when she noticed a grey owl flying outside her window, a letter in its beak. She opened the window and immediately the owl landed on her desk, depositing the big envelope on it before flying away again.

Iris reached her desk hesitantly and picked up the letter. It was obviously for her, the address was very specific.

_**Miss Iris Potter **_

_**The Attic**_

_**4 Privet Drive**_

_**Little Whinging **_

_**Surrey**_

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.

Turning the envelope over, her hand trembling, Iris saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of

arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H.

She played with it a little, not understanding why someone could possibly have written to her. She had no friends, no other family expect the Dursleys, nothing. And since when owls brought the post anyway?

She shook her head, deciding that it was pretty useless to keep looking at it so she took a deep breath and opened it. Inside there were various pages. She took the first one and read it with a sense of disbelief.

_**HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY **_

_**Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE **_

_**(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International **_

_**Confed. of Wizards) **_

_**Dear Miss Potter, **_

_**We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft **_

_**and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. **_

_**Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31. **_

_**Yours sincerely, **_

_**Minerva McGonagall, **_

_**Deputy Headmistress**_

What kind of joke was that? A school for magic? But who could possibly do a prank like that? Not the Dursleys for sure. Their sense of humor amounted to zero. And anyway they hated anything that had to do with magic. Their behavior every time she did something inexplicable was proof enough of that. Was it possible that it was true? That everything strange that she could do was magic, that she was a witch? It seemed too good to be true but after all what was the risk in reading the rest of the letter and answer to it, even if she had no idea how she could possibly send the letter? And what did it mean 'they waited her owl'? Did wizards send letters with owls like the one she has seen before outside her window. But she didn't own a owl, just a hawk. Was a hawk ok? But how could Horus possibly find this Hogwarts?

She shook her head and picked up the two pages left.

**HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY **

**UNIFORM **

**First-year students will require: **

**1. Three sets of plain work robes (black) **

**2. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear **

**3. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar) 4. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings) **

**Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags **

**COURSE BOOKS **

**All students should have a copy of each of the following: **

**The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)by Miranda Goshawk **

**A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot **

**Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling **

**A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch **

**One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore **

**Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger **

**Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander **

**The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble **

**OTHER EQUIPMENT **

**1 wand **

**1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2) **

**1 set of glass or crystal phials **

**1 telescope set **

**1 brass scales **

**Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad **

**PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN **

**BROOMSTICKS**

Okay, how could she possibly find any of these things? And they were probably pretty expensive too. She needed the money to pay the bills and for the groceries, she couldn't spend all the money she had in those things or she was in danger of starving waiting for September 1st to arrive.

In the end she decided to write a note on the back of the first page asking for someone to come at Privet Drive to explain everything about Hogwarts to her and instructed Horus to reach Hogwarts if it could, if not to go back immediately, she would have found another way to answer the letter. Now all she could do was wait.


End file.
